Review: In ‘Makala,’ the Difficulties of Selling Charcoal in Congo

Reviewers have cheered “Makala” since it won the top prize last year at Cannes in Critics’ Week, a parallel festival devoted to first- and second-time feature directors. The case for it has some appeal: Rooting for its principal subject is irresistible, and — while pushing at the edges of what constitutes a documentary — it captures a type of work that movies seldom show.

The director, Emmanuel Gras, trails a man named Kabwita Kasongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo as he makes and sells charcoal, with the dream of building a three-bedroom home for his family. The process of charcoal production affords Mr. Gras striking images, from wood chips flying at the lens to smoke billowing from a giant dirt mound.

Video

A preview of the film.

With heavy sacks of charcoal loaded onto his bicycle, Mr. Kasongo must walk roughly 30 miles of dirt road to a town to negotiate with buyers. As Mr. Gras watches Mr. Kasongo making the arduous trek — taking breaks from exhaustion, or being engulfed in dust from passing traffic or shaken down for money — it is hard to ignore the presence of the camera (and the potentially helpful human being operating it).

The quandaries raised by observational filmmaking are nothing new, and the sticky ethics of ethnographic cinema are at least as old as Robert J. Flaherty (“Nanook of the North”). But to ponder the colonial implications of a French director exoticizing a Congolese man whose family eats rats for meals is to realize that a movie can be heartwarming and heartless at once.

Makala

Director

Emmanuel Gras

Stars

Kabwita Kasongo, Lydie Kasongo

Running Time

1h 36m

Genre

Documentary

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Not rated. In Swahili and French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes.